He pulls into the drive and parks. The place has an even greater air of neglect and disrepair than usual. A lawnmower stands abandoned in the side yard, one strip of tall grass showing where either the mower or the person pushing it simply ran out of gas. The only spot that bears any sign of caretaking is the grave. There's an old whiskey bottle, with flowers not yet wilted by a day in the Harlan sun. The weeds have been trimmed away from the edges of dirt, blades of new grass already beginning to poke through the soil. He sighs, pushes the car door open and walks toward the mound of earth.

He stands there for a moment, hat in hand. He misses her. It isn't the raw angry grief he felt the last time he kept vigil here, but in some ways it's worse. He feels regret, for things said and unsaid, done and undone. Helen visits his dreams, a sardonic spirit wreathed in cigarette smoke and hard-bitten humor, and he wakes in a sweat, wondering about this world and the next and all the shit that happens in between.

Looking up, he sees the sun attempt to bore its way through the clouds. Likely in Lexington it's already a sunny morning. Here, it will be hours before the rays reach the earth. Still, the view is beautiful, as Winona noted; and somewhere in Harlan, he supposes, someone is happy. But there is no happiness here.

The hat goes back on his head, and he trudges up the steps to Arlo.

He rattles the door, knowing that Arlo has never taken to uninivited guests. And he prefers not to have his head blown off before he's got what he's come for.

There's a shuffling sound, a figure looming behind the wire screen that buckles and sags, one corner torn away from the framework.

Arlo pushes the door open and for a moment there is dissonance, white noise, a mis-recognition where Raylan can't reconcile the man he knows, remembers, with the one standing in front of him.

Arlo -his father, no matter what- was always sturdy, strong, proud in his way. This man-

This man is diminished. For the first time, he looks old.

Their eyes meet and the look holds and then Arlo says,

"You'd best come in."

Raylan follows slowly. The place is a mess, more even than before. Newspapers read and unread, dirty dishes, bits of broken glass litter the floor. There's a blanket haphazardly folded on the end of the couch, pillow stacked on top.

"You sleepin' down here now?"

"Not sleepin' all that much anyways. Seems a waste of time going upstairs." Arlo looks away, something in his eyes that evidently isn't for Raylan to see.

Raylan stands in the center of the storm and gazes at all of it, feeling its history pull at him like the undertow of an ocean current.

"I like what you've done with the place," he says, watching Arlo shuffle around with his dressing-gown hanging from his shoulders, the belt trailing along the floor.

"Ava comes round some days," Arlo tells him. "Don't see why she should - ain't none of her concern what happens to me. But she's a sweet thing." He eases himself into a chair and looks up at Raylan. "So."

"I came about Boyd." His face feels tight, something bubbling deep down that he's too afraid to think about, afraid of what might happen if he does think about it.

"Boyd?"

"Don't try acting innocent, Arlo, you wouldn't know how. Ava called me; I know Boyd's gone after Dickie Bennett."

Arlo's head tilts up, his eyes dark and flat and calculating. "Boyd's out doing what needs to be done. What you should be doing to that son-of-a-bitch, after what he did to Helen."

"Don't. Don't bring her into this." So close. He is so close. Arlo watches him, his lips curling.

"She is part of this; you expect me to cut her out of it? I lived with the woman day in and day out for nearly fifteen years. Fifteen years you weren't here - what gives you more right to her than anyone else?"

Raylan looks away and his eyes land on the photograph of Helen and his mother and himself that sits on the crowded sideboard. He remembers that day. And the walls close in and he closes his eyes and he misses her, them, both of them.

"Ava said Boyd came to see you," he says, and he keeps the years of separation and training and hardness and betrayal between them.

"He did." Arlo offers nothing more.

He's being baited and he knows it. Arlo wants violence. Craves it. Raylan takes a deep breath. Use your words, he reminds himself. "What did he say?"

"Said he was goin' after Dickie. Said he knew where he was holed up."

Another breath. "And that was where?" Low, calm, no sign of the seething just beneath.

"He didn't say."

"Dammit, Arlo." It comes out more pleading than angry. "Boyd's not back. He's been gone since yesterday morning. Ava's worried sick."

That gets a momentary reaction. Something close to genuine worry slides across the old man's face. More worry than he's ever spent on his own son. "Come to think of it…" Arlo says. "He did say somethin' about you."

"And what was that?"

"Doesn't make no sense." Arlo shrugs. "Said it was too bad you didn't have one more jug of that 'shine Helen used to make hid off somewhere." His eyes flick up to Raylan's. "What's moonshine got to do with Dickie Bennett?"

"Not a thing I can think of," Raylan says. But he knows where Boyd is.

ooOoo

Ava eats mechanically, more something she has to do rather than wants to. She grips her knife and fork a little too hard, her knuckles showing white.

The food is good and there is plenty of it. She cooks like someone who is accustomed to feeding people and when they both are finished there is still far too much left over and Ava frowns at it as though she can't quite understand why it's there.

"I'll clean up," Winona offers and Ava waves a hand.

"Leave it. I'll do it later."

Watery sunshine struggles through the cloud and the rays afford the illusion of cheer, warming the muted tones of Ava's kitchen. The magnets on the fridge are bright, big floral heads, and Winona smiles at them. Everything in the house has a homely, well-worn feel but there is pride in it. Ava, she thinks, is the sort of woman who could turn a broken-down shack into a proper home. She thinks of herself as being house-proud but this is something different, something more than that. This is a homemaker.

She shifts on her chair, the wood squeaking and Ava looks at her.

"You'll be more comfortable in the parlor."

"Oh, I'm fine."

Ava gives her a look, quiet and steady and she's grateful to give into it. She pushes herself up from the table and they abandon the dishes and empty coffee cups. Ava picks up the shotgun that she left leaning against the wall - an ominous presence that Winona couldn't quite ignore throughout the meal - and her eyes flicker to the purse that Winona picks up, the bottom bulging from the weight of the gun inside. She looks at her consideringly.

"You can shoot?"

"I was married to Raylan. What do you think?"

"I think you'd never shot a gun 'fore you met Raylan." She grins and Winona shakes off the outsider feeling again.

"He said I took to it pretty quickly."

There's a nod and a faint smile. "You ever shot anyone?"

Winona presses her lips together. "Well, no. But-"

"It ain't like target practice." She's serious then, her eyes shadowed. "It's actually pretty easy. That's the scary part."

She doesn't, she realizes, know Ava well enough to respond to that and she wonders what it's like to live with something like that, to be the person who could do something like that; and she wonders just how you get to that stage and hopes that she never has to find out.

The room Ava calls the parlor is cluttered and comfortable.

"It's a bit of a mess..." She bites her lip.

"You should see our charming motel."

And Ava smiles.

There are lighter patches on the walls, rectangles where pictures have been taken down. The ones that remain are mainly of Ava on her own or others, much older, of people Winona doesn't know. There are books everywhere and CDs stacked neatly by a stereo that looks fairly new and like it hasn't been there very long. The room is a negotiation, one life making space for another until an equilibrium is found.

Winona pulls a book off the top of one of the piles and can't help a breath of laughter.

Ava looks over and wrinkles her nose. "Oh, that. I started reading it but I gave up - I couldn't stand that girl!"

"Persuasion is better," Winona says softly.

"That's what Boyd says."

"I remember."

Ava frowns. "What?"

Winona stares at the book and tries to think but her brain doesn't co-operate.

ooOoo

He drives with his hands tight on the wheel. He knows the way by heart, even though it's been twenty years since he's been in this part of the county. From the ruts and potholes, muddied by the morning rain, the roads haven't been repaved in nearly that long.

His mind wanders, unsettled by the vision of his father stuck in his mind. Arlo had always been a force: a force to avoid or run from as a boy, a force to confront as a young man, and maybe a bit of both since Raylan's return to Kentucky. The man he just left is indeed, as Boyd said that day in the elevator, adrift without an anchor. Raylan considers for a moment the possibility that Arlo really loved Helen; that Arlo was capable of love at all.

He shakes his head, partly in denial, partly to clear his brain of unwelcome introspection. Now, though, the photograph rises in his memory. He rarely thinks of his mother, almost never misses her; she was broken and absent in spirit long before she passed. Today, though, after standing in that house empty of any sign of care or affection, he feels her loss as keenly as Helen's.

He rounds a curve and a glint of silver catches his eye. Slowing, he rolls down the window and peers into the woods that line the side of the road. There's a dirt path, just wide enough for a vehicle and off to the side is Boyd's truck. There's no sign of the man. He eases the car into the curve under a bank of trees and approaches the truck, eyes busy and cautious and his hand hovering over the gun at his hip.

The truck is relatively clean, a tarpaulin folded on the flat-bed. The passenger-side window is halfway open and he circles the truck until he reaches it, still looks around and then peers through the window. He doesn't expect a message with an arrow pointing in the direction that Boyd has taken but he does think that there might be something. There are two books on the seat and he slides an arm through the opening, waiting for the alarm. It doesn't sound. He can't reach them, pulls back his arm, tries the door and it opens. He swears under his breath.

The books are a volume of John Donne and a copy of The Language of Flowers. Nothing hidden between their pages. He stares at the worn volumes for a moment and then reminds himself that he is, after all, chasing after a mad man. He goes back to his car.

Raylan considers his options and decides it best to park elsewhere. Not a good idea to have both vehicles in the same place. He drives about half-a-mile to a small clearing and parks, making his way back through the woods to Boyd's truck.

ooOoo

After Winona finishes the story there is a long silence that stretches her nerves to breaking point. And when Ava finally speaks, she says,

'Huh. So that's what happened."

For a moment she thinks it's possible that Ava hasn't actually heard anything that she's said.

"What?"

"Well," Ava leans back on the sofa, "when Boyd got back from Kuwait he didn't come back to Harlan right off. Didn't say where he'd been, but, well, obviously, he had to have been somewhere. Wasn't all that long before I got married." Her head tilts, thoughtful. "We didn't think he'd be there at all, for the wedding, I mean, but then he just showed up one morning like nothing had happened. He gave me a bunch of primroses and wished me good luck."

"He's loved you a long time," Winona says and there is no question in her tone.

Ava looks at her, looks away. "Yes. It didn't always seem that way at the time." There is silence and both women, perhaps, think about time and the alterations it brings to what is and what has been. Ava laughs suddenly and Winona looks up at her. "Sorry, I just keep thinking... Well, it is kinda funny: both of us having had both of them."

"I'm glad you think so." She shifts on the sofa, trying to ignore the insistent fluttering just below her ribcage.

"It is funny!"

One corner of Winona's mouth curls and Ava grins at her triumphantly. "Damn, you two kept that quiet. So, in the elevator..."

She nods. "First time I'd seen him in nearly twenty years. And then afterwards I realized I'd heard the name when I was typing those transcripts but I just didn't put it together." She blows out a breath and Ava still looks amused. "So... This is okay?"

Shoulders rise and drop. "It was a long time ago. And given my history with Raylan, I don't think anyone's got the right to start pointing fingers." She pauses. "Even so, I'm guessing Raylan doesn't know about this?"

"No." Her fingers link together. "And please don't tell him. I mean- Yeah, you're right, it was a long time ago but I don't think Raylan would be as ... understanding ... about this as you. He gets ... weird doesn't cover it ... over Harlan and I don't know what it is with him and Boyd but it's something. What were they? Rivals? Best friends?"

Ava is silent; one hand rises in the air, fingers questioning, then falls. "They dug coal together."

"What does that mean?"

"Honestly, Winona, when it comes right down to it I don't know. Everything, to them anyhow." She shrugs again.

Raylan hadn't come to Harlan for Ava, she had been right about that. And she knows, is certain, that he would swear with his last breath that he hadn't come for Boyd. And while she's being honest about all of it, she isn't entirely sure why she came. It was the right thing, for some reason.

A spear of fire races up her spine and she sits forward with a grunt, pushes up, hands pressed at the small of her back and stretches against the pain. She winces. "I've been sitting too long," she tells Ava. "My back is killing me, and the baby's restless. He's kicking like crazy." She walks back and forth, rubbing her stomach in slow circles. "I don't suppose Raylan would approve of us taking a short walk around the yard? Sometimes if I move around he settles down."

"Raylan ain't here," Ava says. "Seems safe enough." Still, she picks up the sawed-off and takes it with her as they descend the steps. "I should check the garden anyway. And I think I forgot to get the mail yesterday."

They walk, the rain-soaked grass dampening their shoes. The sun is out in full now, but a heavy haze still hangs over the hills in the distance and in spots here and there in the yard there's a mist that can't quite be called fog. Winona thinks it's like being inside of one of those snow globes she loved as a girl, only instead of snow, it's just vapour glistening like diamonds that dissolve into nothing when you touch them.

"So..." Ava's voice startles her out of her daydream. "You still have kin in Kentucky?"

Winona hesitates; it's a question more out of politeness, she thinks; but then Ava's eyes are focused and it isn't the well-mannered disinterest of a stranger. "My mother passed a few years ago. Cancer."

"I'm sorry," Ava says, quiet. "You got a daddy?"

"Yes." Winona nods. "He's had a couple of heart attacks, but he's doing okay now. He lives over near Louisville. I don't see much of him."

"So ... not much in the way of grandparents for this one, what with how things are between Raylan and Arlo."

"It doesn't look like it, no."

"I meant what I said about Helen. She would have liked you," Ava notes. Then she smiles. "You stand up to Raylan."

Winona purses her lips thoughtfully, shoving her hands into the pockets of her sweater. "He'd say I'm argumentative."

"He would." Ava laughs. "I'm surprised he let you come here. He's got this protective thing."

"Oh, you noticed." Winona smirks.

"I'd imagine that's at its worst with you right now, considering."

Winona stops and turns to the other woman. "You know what he actually said to me this morning?" Ava shakes her head and Winona continues. "Said I shouldn't come in my condition."

"Oh. Gosh." Ava's eyes crinkle with amusement. "Did you smack him?"

"I should've."

They come to a ridge at the back of the house and the view here is even more spectacular than the one in front. Winona wonders if you'd ever get used to seeing it every day.

"It's beautiful," she murmurs after a moment. "I can see why Lexington didn't work for you."

"The landscape wasn't really the problem." Ava turns her face up to the sun, taking in its warmth. Her eyes fix beyond the line of trees that border the property, are higher than the glisten of water feeding down to the nearby creek. She looks up at the peaks that crest against the mantle of cloud. "Boyd loves those hills. He can spend days up there at a stretch. He talks about them sometimes like they're people - their personalities, the way they work. I do love it here, but he ... he feels it, the creeks and the hollers. Right down to the bone. Sometimes I wish I could." She takes in a long breath then lets it go. "I should check the mail."

Winona follows her down to an indeterminate border that marks the end of her property and the small box mounted on its pole with the red lever. Ava pulls it open, one hand scrabbling inside. She frowns.

"What is it?" She feels the weight of the gun in her purse and her body tensing. Ava pulls out her hand, opens it and they both stare at the petals, translucent and delicate, lying in her palm. Their colors are muted but their beauty has still been captured: primroses and blue violets, pressed to the thinness of paper, embodying their message to her, not having it written upon them.

"That man..." Her face twists, a pain that tears through and contorts and buckles her. "When he comes back I'll kill him, I swear to God." Eyes glitter and she blinks rapidly and turns away and Winona tries to pretend that she cannot see it. She stares at the red lever on the mailbox. And when Ava has scrubbed at her face and put the precious handful of offerings into her jacket pocket and turned back, Winona asks,

"When did you last get any sleep?"

"Night before last." A pause. "Full night, probably a few nights before that."

"You should try to rest."

Ava shakes her head.

They stand for a while and argue the point: Winona is the one with the small human growing inside of her; Ava is the one who hasn't slept for forty-eight hours and is running on caffeine and fear. They both refuse the use of Ava's bed and face each other in the weak sunshine, then head inside when splashes of rain start to lick the already saturated earth. In the end they reach a compromise: Ava fetches blankets from upstairs and they both curl up on the sofa and over-stuffed chairs in the parlor.

There's a low side-table beside Ava's chair, and before she pulls her blanket over herself, she arranges carefully the pressed flowers across its surface.